Reflection: Chanting the Square Deific

Chanting the Square Deific was written by Walt Whitman in 1865 (Oliver). It was part of his book of poetry called Leaves of Grass.
In this poem, Walt Whitman wrote about God not being a trinity as the Christian Church accepted, but being a quanternity (Oliver). A trinity is a union of three people, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Trinity). Whitman went against the church in this poem and said he had four different sides. Each stanza in this poem represents one of the sides.
In the first stanza, God describes himself at "Jehovah," "Old Brahm," "Saturnuis," and "Kronos" (Whitman). All of these are  a religious king in other religions. Also in the first stanza, God describes himself as merciless.(Oliver). For example, he writes "

Relentless I forgive no man—whoever sins dies—I will have           that man's life"

(Whitman). He is a very harsh man.

In the second stanza, the side of Christ is the topic.This side seems to be a lot nicer than God. He calls himself the "mightier God" (Whitman). I think that this side of God is too nice while the first side is way too harsh. Christ takes all the burdens of sin while God does not accept any of them (Oliver).
Satan is the topic in the third stanza. He is "the brother of slaves" and yet at the same time he is a criminal (Whitman). He claims that nothing will change him. He also has a "soft heart" for the "downtrodden" (Oliver).  Satan is the least important side of the four. There is already an accepting character, Christ, the mean one, God, and the most powerful one who is kind of a wild card, Satana Spirita.
In the last stanza, the last side of God is shown according to Whitman's beliefs. The last side is "santa spirita" (Whitman).The last character is the spirit of the universe. It is on the opposite of Christ in the square of four. This last character includes all of the other three sides inside of it at the same time. Whitman writes in the last stanza "

Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,

Breathe my breath also through these songs."

 On Charles Oliver's literary criticism, he ends with an interesting point. He believes that the last line of the poem suggests that the author is Satana Spirita. Charles Oliver believes that he is not only singing to the people in this poem, but to all the stories in Leaves of Grass (Oliver). That is a very deep point which seems to be true. The last line makes this poem kind of an intro to all the other stories and connects them together.
(Whitman).These two lines sum up Satana Spirita. He describes himself as lighter than the light. He is obviously the most powerful of the three sides. He is very powerful because he somehow contains all three other parts and yet is still opposite to the side of Christ.

Oliver, Charles M. "'Chanting the Square Deific'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Whitman, Walt. "The Walt Whitman Archive." CHANTING THE SQUARE DEIFIC. 


"Trinity." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 03 Apr. 2012. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trinity?s=t>.